We’re going singing tomorrow!! So I thought I’d just share this video from last summer when I was going over a few songs from our singing group.
Glad I’ve had a look at this again as I’d forgotten a couple of these!! That day I took my trusty, dog-eared note-book full of song lists and scribbles to remind me of all the songs I know because I often forget them all!
First song:
“One hundred thousand starlings fly together, dancing in the air whene’er they will, murmuration x 4”
This is a nice little round to do. I have always wanted to sing it while watching an actual murmuration but that is yet to happen!
There are a couple of really relevant spring songs too….
Next is a medieval English round from the 13th C - "Sumer is icumen in" which I first learnt at the Beeston Mums Choir.
I do not read music by the way - just learn by ear - but am putting this here just in case anyone is interested.
I love the cuckoo reference. I really hope we hear a cuckoo soon.
Next song is called Ah Poor Bird which is a very melancholic song, so much so that we often don’t even bother with it at all! Except in the darkness of the winter.
“Ah poor bird, take thy flight, through the sorrows of this dark night”.
Hazel song - taught to me by a lovely lady called Julia Hartley (Richard Vobes’ other half). Tried a couple of random key changes with this one.
“Hazel, hazel merry little fellow
Flowers red1 and catkins yellow
In summer you dance in your cap of green
Show me the source of your hidden stream”2
Next is a LOVELY owd fashioned song taught to me by Trina who leads her own “circle singing” group in Beeston.
“As I me walk-ed on a May morning
I heard a bird sing - cuckoo”
It’s a funny one at first to learn with the odd timing but once you get it, it’s fine and flows really well.
All of these songs are great as rounds and also to sing as you walk along. In fact this last one is called a “walking song”. However, I have a theory that it could mean “waulking” which is that thing from Scotland that they do to the wool…. (the following is a very beautiful video)
Now the very last song I sing here in the tunnel is John Kanaka. You can tell at this point that Alisa is getting bored but ‘cos it’s my birthday she has to stick it just a little bit longer!! No-one sings it quite like these load of fishermen though…
We had a great time that day at Hardwick Hall, a National Trust property up in Derbyshire, where this ice house is located.
I’m hoping we get to sing some of, if not all, these songs tomorrow. There won’t be an ice house to sing into however there will be a railway bridge with brilliant acoustics!
Oh AND it’s a super new moon too. So ALL the more powerful!!!! Come join us if you are nearby.
Yes it really does have red flowers - they are absolutely tiny and appear in the winter
reference to hazel being used for dowsing rods
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